On Thursday 11th February we had our very first Emanuel Wellbeing afternoon! The focus of the afternoon was to encourage pupils, staff and the Emanuel community to take care of their own mental and physical wellbeing; which is all the more important in the current circumstance we find ourselves in.
Our new Emanuel Wellbeing Society, currently made up of six Lower Sixth students, will continue to raise awareness of the importance of caring for your mental and physical wellbeing and provide a pupil voice to suggest ideas of how we can continue to support pupil wellbeing. We hope to organise many more events in the future.
A huge variety of activities were available to our pupils, thanks to our very talented staff members and a few of our Upper Sixth students. Some of the most popular activities with our Lower School pupils included Mr Shetzer’s gaming activity where over 160 pupils went along to play games such as name that film/book, Boggle and Guess Who. Other activities in the Lower School included Mr Reed’s Mask-Making, Miss Caffyn’s Scriptwriting, Ms Aitkin-Burt’s Tour of Athens and Miss Blaikie’s fitness workout. A huge hit in the Middle School sessions included Miss Wells’ raspberry cheesecake brownies, all of which turned out to be a huge success! Other popular activities included Miss Fearnley’s jewellery making and Mrs McIsaac’s dog tricks workshop, though we can’t guarantee all dogs were house-trained by the end of it. Sixth Form students also had a wide range of activities available to them, including yin yoga and meditation with Miss Tendler and Ms Lepretre, Zwift cycling with Mr Jones and an introduction to stand up comedy with Mr House!
As well as the Zoom sessions, pupils were offered a range of non-Zoom activities and challenges. We still have one ongoing challenge which is the competition to create the new Emanuel Wellbeing Society logo! If you’d like to enter, draw a sketch of what you think it should look like and email it to Miss McCloud to submit your entry.
A huge thank you to those staff members and our four Upper Sixth students (Lauren McAuliffe, Samuel Stocks, Grace Pollock, Miranda Barclay) who ran activities.
Participating pupil feedback:
‘Origami was very fun and I had a great time learning to fold paper into lotus flowers and birds.’
‘My favourite was the raspberry cheesecake brownies because it was really relaxing and fun to get involved and bake something nice for my family.’
‘I really liked the football skills session because I did the session outside and it was very active and enjoyable.’
‘My favourite session was the mindfulness because it was really effective and helped me to clear my mind.’
‘I really enjoyed training my dog-Off zoom. I enjoyed this because it meant that I could spend more time with my puppy and help out my mum so she doesn’t have to look after him all the time.’
‘I loved the yoga as Lauren and Ms Low hosting it were very kind and fun, and it helped me calm down and relax.’
‘I really enjoyed the art making mask session with Mr Reed, it was really enjoyable and fun and a great way to finish the day with something creative and so fun!’
‘I loved football skills with Mr Leigh. Very fun because I loved being able to have a break from lessons and do some sports. Same with Ms Blaikie’s fitness session.’
‘My favourite session was fashion design with Grace Pollock, as her enthusiasm on the topic was infectious and it was very interesting to learn about an unconventional form of fashion pushing the boundaries of the industry.’
Miss McCloud (Head of Year 6 and the Emanuel Wellbeing Society)
